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Detective Thomas gulped the dregs in his cup and decided that this morning, there just wasn’t enough caffeine to keep him going.
Maybe there never was enough, Thomas thought, but he needed a jolt. Especially today. He left his cup on the kitchen counter, then headed to the bathroom, where he opened the medicine cabinet and retrieved a half-full bottle of modafinil. He held the small bottle in his hand, unscrewed the top and dropped a pill into his palm. As he closed the cabinet door, he caught his reflection in the mirror. Red eyes, deep crow’s-feet at the corners, tousled hair that seemed a little duller than yesterday, unshaven jaw that was still tight. He looked like he’d pulled an all-nighter.
Close enough.
To bed at 2:00 a.m.
Asleep by three.
Up at six forty-five.
And tossing back pills at seven o’clock.
Great.
This was not his usual routine. He usually was up earlier and worked out, but not today. He’d broken his self-imposed regimen for the first time in weeks.
The medication was legit. A prescription. Though three years old. For insomnia. His jaw tightened as he remembered the doctor, a woman with a kind smile and white coat, Indian heritage visible in her dark eyes, jet-black hair and slight accent. “These will help you get through the day,” she’d said kindly while dashing off the prescription. “Once things have stabilized and you’re sleeping again, then you can taper off.”
Trouble was, things had never stabilized.
He wondered if they ever would.
He tossed back the tablet, stepped into the shower and let the bracing cold water run over his body. That was a shock. It helped. Icy needles pummeling his skin and running through his hair. Slowly he increased the temperature and within five minutes, he was fully awake and could get on with his morning. He threw on clothes, retrieved his service weapon from the safe and was at the door when he noticed his free weights and bench left unattended near the treadmill, where he’d tossed his jacket last night.Tonight, he promised himself, and left any shred of guilt behind him as he walked out the door and into the stairwell.
In less than two minutes he was in his SUV, threading through traffic. He grabbed a triple espresso and a sausage roll from a drive-through kiosk, where the barista, all of eighteen with a messy bun, bright smile and a tattoo of a rose vine crawling up one arm, handed him his breakfast in a white sack while saying “You have a good day” around a smile that was just too perky at this hour of the morning.
“You too,” he’d said by rote, echoing the platitude.
Fifteen minutes later, he was at his desk when the station was still on the quiet side, but that would soon be over. It was nearly time for a shift change, the day crew coming on to replace the few officers and staff that held down the fort during the early-morning hours.
His phone vibrated.
He glanced at it and recognized Sheila’s number.
Hell.
He picked up. “Hey.”
“I thought you might be avoiding me,” she chided softly.
“I might be.” He imagined her with her intense brown eyes, pale, freckled complexion and wild cloud of red hair that never seemed tamed. Though forty, she looked ten years younger and kept herself in top athletic shape with some kind of intense boot camp–type fitness regimen that the army would envy.
“Look, I just thought you could give me some insight on the McIntyre Massacre. You know, now that Jonas McIntyre’s a free man, what’s the department going to do?”
Good question, he thought.
“I mean, are you going to look for the real killer?”
“You’re assuming that Jonas McIntyre’s not guilty.”
“He’s going free.”
“On a technicality.”
“Because the cops screwed up,” she said.
With effort, Thomas held on to his temper. Because she was right. There apparently had been a mistake in handling the evidence. The admission of that fact had sent the slow-grinding wheels of justice into reverse. But didn’t get Jonas McIntyre off the hook, not in Thomas’s mind. Sure, he couldn’t be tried for the same crimes, as double jeopardy prevented him being convicted again, but a man like McIntyre, a cold-blooded killer who’d spent over half his time locked away with felons? What were the chances that he wouldn’t fall back on his homicidal ways? The odds were zero to none.
